Question on gravity.

Hi all, Hey am a pretty green home brewer and have done 5 kit batches so far. I have a question regarding the gravity. Everytime I brew a batch and check the starting gravity with the hydrometer it seems my batches are always 0.010 lower then they should be. My final gravity readings always seem ok but with a low starting gravity won't my alchol content be lower? I'm not adding too much water to the wort, and my local supplier told me to tst my hydrometer in plain water. It reads 1.000 which I believe is correct. Any thoughts? I find it kind of strange that this has happened to all my batches. I usually start with 3 gallons in my brew pot and after transferring to the primary fermenter add only enough water to bring it up to 5 gallons. I have been thinking about adding some corn sugar to the wort when boiling to increase the sugar levels. Thanks

I'm still at the "kit beer" level too, so beware my advice. Just tossing out a wild guess here. If you're using liquid instead of dry malt extract... Maybe some malt was left in the can? The stuff is sticky and may not pour out completely. I ladle some of the hot water from my boiling pot into the malt container to help loosen up the last drops. Otherwise, I can't see how a little additional corn sugar would hurt anything. Distilled water should read 1.000, so that's right.

Karl S.

One assumes you are compensating for temperature with your readings.

The concentrated wort has a much higher SG than the water, so if it isn't completely mixed before you take a reading the heavier wort will sink to the bottom of the fermenter. It takes a lot of rocking to mix the wort - especially if the vessel has little air space left.

Corn sugar? Not in my beer, thank you.

Nope...that would mnake the OG higher, not lower.

----------->Denny

If starting grav is low sugar is low. Corn sugar works, change the flavor? Depends on how much sugar and the sensitivity of the palate, my palate gets desensitized after about 2 good homebrews anyway. To increase grav you might and a bit of DME this will probably change the flavor enough to notice, but who cares, you might find you like it better. The advice to mix well, sure sounds solid to me. Reducing the water wouldn't be my first choice, probably good advice but I want all of my five gallons.

Avery Brew on brother!